I was looking at tai chi places in GR. There aren't that many, it turns out. One of them seems nice, chill, it's run by a woman who's been doing tai chi a long time. There are some oddities on her site like she calls it "Tai Chi Gung" which sounds like a mashup of "Tai Chi" (taiji) and "Chi Kung" (qigong)? But the "chi" in "tai chi" is a completely different word than the "chi" in "chi kung", it's actually "ch'i". So that's a little odd, but not that odd...
@mph her patter seems much more woo-oriented than what I'm used to from the place I've taken tai chi before, from a Chinese guy who learned it in China. He's more marial-arts oriented, and doesn't emphasize the woo element at all.
I notice that this lady also mentions one of the things she's into along with "energy balancing" and stuff is "quantum physics" - which in this context means, like, new age weirdness.
@mph I'm looking for places along with a friend who's also thinking of joining, and she's like "if the place is good a little eye rolling about the person's beliefs isn't that big a deal" and I was like "that's right, I'll look into it a little more, might be worth checking out."
I follow some links on the web site, read about the teachers this woman has had, and hear that her current teacher, to whom she links on her website, is called "Master Lama Rasaji" and heads the "Circle of Chi"
@mph "Huh," I think. "Lama Rasaji doesn't sound Chinese, it sounds vaguely Indian." She links to his web site. He appears to be a bald white guy with a long beard and a beatific smile, wearing a thin white kung fu/tai chi type uniform.
Here we learn that the "lama" part really means "Lama".
We learn that he is one of only twelve "Master Lamas" on the planet, taught at the Lamasery founded by Lau Tzu (didn't you know he founded a Lamasery in Tibet)?
@mph He is supposed to have learned the 3000 year old art of Tai Chi passed down from Lao Tzu. (Tai Chi is not from Tibet and is, at most, several hundred years old.)
The GR woo lady linked to the page where he gives daily talks on different subjects. That day's talk is about the Secret Teachings of Enoch. In a jarringly strong Southern accent.
I'm like, this is, best case, a spiritual grifter and bullshit artist, worst case, this is a straight up cult.
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@mph I haven't actually dug into the videos but it mixes a lot of new age spiritual stuff with vaguely Christian stuff about prophecy and prayer and "the armor or God" and kinda prosperity gospel-ish stuff, it looks like a lot of pretty standard "conspirituality grifter" stuff.
Anyway that was where I ended up, and that was a hell of a ride from where I started on my survey of tai chi studios.
@mph (Why am I looking at other studios when I learned for a long time at a really great and grounded studio? Long story, it's complicated, it's not them it's me)
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